2/28/13

Joslyn ate all of her blueberries and about half of her English muffin at breakfast. At lunch she ate all of her tuna and crackers, most of her cherries and a couple bites of potatoes.

A couple days ago I had an idea to take close up pictures of everyone's hands, except Riley and the three babies because they didn't want to cooperate. Now the kiddos request to "do the hand game", which means I show them the pictures on my iPad (eventually I will print them off and laminate them) and they guess whose hands are whose. All of the bigger kiddos (Thomas and up) love it.

Another thing I have done is to take pictures of different items out in the big room and then ask them to bring me the actual item that matches. That is one of the things the developmental checklist wants to know, so I decided to make it into a game also.

Joslyn was again pretty clingy and didn't play much unless it was teacher directed like the two activities above. We just wanted to cuddle on or close to either Gary or I. I think some time with grandma and grandpa may be just what she needs -- a little change of pace.

Kenzie and Joslyn we looking at the Snow White and the seven dwarfs book and asking each other who was grumpy, dopey and sneezy. Those seemed to be the only three dwarfs they could remember.

2/26 & 27/13

Joslyn ate all of her biscuit and most of her peaches at breakfast. At lunch she ate all of her baked beans, peas, pineapple and dinner roll.

Joslyn was exceptionally clingy today. I worked hard to fill her little love tank, but even nearly constant cuddling she still wanted more. Often when either parent is having extra stressors or there are other things going on (maybe anticipation of the upcoming weekend getaway) this kind of behavior occurs. She has the kind of temperament that

Today she had more consistent troubles with listening, near melt downs, and being not wanting to do what we asked than she has for a while. We were just consistent with her.

It amazes me how often our toys are used for things other thwn their intended purpose. Today Joslyn was having a scarf tugawar with Thomas. I stopped that one because I knew someone was going to end up hurt or angry and it was going to stretch out or rip the scarf.

Gary was shining his little flashlight into the igloo when a couple of the kiddos were in there. That lead to more being in there until there were five of them. We had an igloo of laughter.

Joslyn was very excited to try to do all the specific things I asked them to do for the developmental checklists at art time. We ended up doing two sheets apiece, though, because she didn't like the thought of not being able to take it home today (We're keeping it for our meeting).

I have probably mentioned it before, but the kiddos just love to use our swivel rocking chair in the back room as their merry go round. They just love that, both the riders and the pushers.

2/25/13

Joslyn ate all of her banana and most of her Cheerios at breakfast. At lunch she ate seconds on cheese sandwich and tomato soup and all of her apples.

Joslyn was super glad that Nora was back from vacation and had a very hard time keeping her hands off of her for the first half hour or so. She did much better after that.

In the back room we have a chair that not only rocks but also swivels. The kiddos have decided that it is their merry-go-round. In my group, it is usually Riley and Aaron sitting in the chair while Joslyn and Kenzie push it. It is pretty funny and Riley LOVES it (unless she does it too much so that she gets sick)!

Joslyn had to imitate Kenzie when she put on a pair of goggles first then sunglasses over e top. It was pretty classic,

2/22/13

Joslyn ate all of her oatmeal and craisins at breakfast. At lunch she ate seconds on the pea pasta dish with shredded cheese on it and all of her applesauce and her ground beef.

Joslyn was watching Kenzie playing and having fun. Riley was standing right beside her and Joslyn bent over, patted her on the back and said, "your sister's coo-coo!" Riley acted like she understood because she really grinned and kind of tipped her head back like she was going to laugh.

Aaron and Joslyn were having a very good time on the rowdy side of the room this morning. First of all, they were each holding a dinosaur and spinning until they were so dizzy that they fell over. When they accidentally fell into each other they would laugh like crazy. They then started chasing each other around. Aaron was calling, "Ozzy (for Jozzy), find me!" and just laughing like crazy.

In the back room Joslyn and Kenzie, first of all, were jumping while holding onto the block building. They were knocking off pieces while they held and jumped to the music. At first it was on accident, then they repeated it over and over, cracking up when they landed in a heap with blocks in their hands. They made it look so fun that Aaron had to join in too, of course.

After that they focused on building tall towers with the individual Duplo pieces. At first they were having a difficult time getting them to stand up while they added more. I showed them that they could put them on a flat base part and that helped stabilize them for additional blocks.

2/21/13

Joslyn ate seconds on cinnamon roll and all of her prunes at breakfast. At lunch she ate all of her green beans and ground turkey, and about half of both her kiwi and her sandwich thin.

She and Kenzie went out and worked on puzzled side by side for several minutes. Both of them were pretending they didn't know how to put their puzzle together so the other one would "help" them.

Joslyn wanted to play in the back for a while this morning because the kiddos were getting on her nerves. She went back and played the musical instruments out back there until breakfast. She came back out looking way less stressed and more peaceful.

Joslyn and Emily read books is the big yellow chair together for unite a while. They were looking at the pictures together, talking about what they thought the story was about and even asking each other to point at different pictures or answer other questions like we do when we read to the kiddos.

Joslyn just loves playing with the big blocks and Duplos in the block back room. I love it because she jumps right in and gets engaged in building with them and Kenzie then gets interested and follows her lead.

2/19 & 2/20/13

Joslyn ate seconds on toast and thirds on dried mangoes at breakfast. At lunch she ate all of her elf and bean burrito, a bite of her sweet potatoes and about half of her tropical fruit.

Joslyn was pretending to go on "Bacation" and trying to get all of the other kiddos to go with her. Thomas said he wanted to go too and then Aaron came over and said, "Oh no! I come 'wit' you!" I think he was afraid he was going to be left behind.

As usual, Joslyn had to try on most of the dress ups. There are boots, hats, mittens, gloves, scarves, sunglasses and goggles. Joslyn had everything but the sunglasses on and told Kenzie she was "going skiing." It was cute.

Joslyn and Thomas were having a blast shoving all of the stuffed animals into the igloo, taking them out, putting them in the corner "to wallamaroo". I'm not sure what that is, but she had Thomas convinced of the place.

Joslyn, Thomas and Riley were on the rowdy side of the room and Emily, Kenzie and Mia on the other. Emily and Kenzie were meeting the rowdy side kiddos with "water ". Even Riley was coming over with her arms out saying "more" to get some. It was great!

I was having some of the kiddos try to do things for the developmental assessments and must have called it testing, because the three bigger girls talked about testing the rest of the morning. Joslyn loved doing all of the things I asked her to do. She had a difficult time not answering or doing the things when it WASN'T her turn too. : )

We had made what we had called a "hide-a-way" with the big blocks in the back room. It had two and a half walls and then we put it up against the room wall on the open side and with the half wall against the block shelf. In order to get in they either had to scoot it away from the wall or crawl in through the big block shelf. Yesterday they had played with it that way for the entire time. Today it morphed into "McDonalds" and the wall was the order counter. Behind it was the kitchen. Kenzie and Joslyn were in the kitchen and kept trying to get Aaron and Riley to place some orders. The whole thing was pretty humorous

Most of the kiddos really don't care much for Mia and often ignore, move away from or yell at her because she is often after something they have. Joslyn will often not only tolerate her, but love on her, which is nice.

2/15/13

Joslyn ate all of her rice and raisins at breakfast. A lunch she ate ate all of her French bread and meatloaf, about half of her cooked carrots and a couple bites of dried apricots.

Joslyn, Thomas and Kenzie were all sitting in the yellow chair sideways. They we using it as their "car" and going several different places. They kept saying they were doing to go see this one name we couldn't decipher. After one of the times we were trying to get them to explain who it was, Joslyn went over to the poster on the wall of the kiddo vacuuming and said, "that guy". Obviously they had made up a name for him -- pretty advanced pretend ply".

Nora really likes Joslyn and often initiates play with her. She will come walking over to her with her arms out like she wants to be picked up. That is Joslyn's invitation to lay. Joslyn seldom is rough at all with her and usually Nora just loves her attention and play.

Joslyn wanted to be alone because she thought everyone was "bugging" her. We let her play in one of the back rooms by herself until she wanted to rejoin us. She came back out after a few minutes then wanted to cuddle until it was time for us to switch to the back rooms.

Joslyn, Kenzie and I had a lot of fun building two farm houses in the back room with the Duplos. The were directing me as to where they wanted the window, roofs and doors to go in each house. I think I had as much fun playing with them as they did!